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October 31, 2009

Temple of The Feathered SerpentXochicalco is a pre-Columbian archaeological site in the western part of the Mexican state of Morelos. The name Xochicalco may be translated from Nahuatl as "in the (place of the) house of Flowers". The site is located 38 km southwest of Cuernavaca, about 76 miles by road from Mexico City. The site is open to visitors all week, from 10am to 5pm, although access to the observatory is only allowed after noon. The apogee of Xochicalco came after the fall of Teotihuacan and it has been speculated that Xochicalco may have played a part in the fall of the Teotihuacan empire.

The architecture and iconography of Xochicalco show affinities with Teotihuacan, the Maya area, and the Matlatzinca culture of the Toluca Valley. The main ceremonial center is atop an artificially leveled hill, with remains of residential structures, mostly unexcavated, on long terraces covering the slopes. The site was first occupied by 200 BC, but did not develop into an urban center until the Epiclassic period (A.D. 700 - 900). Nearly all the standing architecture at the site was built at this time. At its peak, the city may have had a population of up to 20,000 people.

Of special interest are sculptured reliefs on the sides of some buildings. The Temple of the Feathered Serpent has fine stylized depictions of that deity in a style which includes apparent influences of Teotihuacan and Maya art. It has been speculated that Xochicalco may have had a community of artists from other parts of Mesoamerica.

Other monuments at the site include several other step-pyramid temples, palaces, three ballcourts, sweat-baths, an unusual row of circular altars, and a cave with steps carved down into it. The site also has some free-standing sculptured stelae; others were removed from their original location and are now on display in the INAH museum in Mexico City and at the site museum.

At some point around A.D. 900 the city of Xochicalco was burned and destroyed. Many of the excavated houses and temples have layers of burning and destruction that cover the deposits from the main Epiclassic occupation. Underneath destruction layers, numerous objects were left in place in the houses, indicating that the site was destroyed and abandoned quickly. A small remnant population lived on, however, on the lower slopes of the hill. Later, around A.D. 1200, the site was recolonized by the Nahuatl-speaking Tlahuica peoples, ancestors to the Nahuatl-speaking populations of the modern state of Morelos.

Xochicalco is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a tourist destination. The site also has a well-stocked museum, designed by noted Mexican architect Roland Dada. [Wiki]

October 30, 2009

The Christian Science MonitorBy Sara Miller Llana | Staff writer 10.29.09Los Tigres del Norte sing of censorship, bail on Mexican award. Los Tigres del Norte, a popular Mexican band, canceled an appearance on the Luna Awards TV show in Mexico Wednesday. The Mexican government denied any censorship of the band.MEXICO CITY - Politicians say that narcocorridos, the songs which extol the exploits of drug traffickers, must go. But these ballads appeal to a significant audience.Caught in the middle are the Mexican musicians themselves, who say their art merely chronicles of the political and business interests that fuel the drug trade and wreak havoc on the streets.In the most recent standoff, the popular “norteño” band Los Tigres del Norte canceled an appearance at an awards show in Mexico for alleged “censorship.” Universal Music, the Tigres’ record label, said that the government-owned National Auditorium in Mexico City asked them not to play their narcocorrido hit “La Granja” during Las Lunas Awards ceremony Wednesday night. In protest, Los Tigres bailed out.La Granja, which translate as “The Farm,” seems to take aim at the military-led war against drug trafficking, which has unleashed violence between rival drug traffickers (see our briefing on the key cartels and the Mexican government campaign against them) and taken a livelihood away from many would-be marijuana growers and dealers.The lyrics, translated by the Los Angeles Times, go like this:Today we have, every dayMuch insecurityBecause they let the dog looseAnd it all came tumbling down . . . .El EconomistaVicente Gutiérrez Created 28/10/2009.

October 27, 2009

Leonora Carrington, one of Britain's finest - and neglected – surrealists.Her importance, lies partly in that she - along with artists such as Leonor Fini and Remedios Varo - opened up a new, and more female, strand of surrealism: in Mexico, Leonora and Varo dabbled in alchemy and the occult, and the work of both was rooted for a time in the magical and domestic elements of women's lives. "One of the extraordinary aspects of Leonora's work is how she draws on so many different inspirations, from the Celtic legends she learned from her nanny, through the constraints of her upper-class upbringing, to the surrealism of Paris in the 1930s - and then to the magic of Mexico," "Her work is evocative of so many things, and it's enormously complex: she hasn't had a massive output because her technique is so meticulous and the work so detailed. She certainly wasn't a Picasso who could churn out several pictures a day; her work would take many months, even years."

October 25, 2009

Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness. Nathaniel Hawthorne

October 21, 2009

Tina Modotti's house in Mexico City.Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti was a beautiful woman, a minor star of the theater and silent film, and a political radical. She was born in Italy in 1896 and lived in San Francisco and Hollywood, then in Mexico City of the 1920s and in Berlin of the early 1930s.

For a brief seven years, Tina Modotti, as she is known, also was a fine-art photographer. She made still lifes appear as political symbols and flesh-and-blood women seem to be emblematic monuments.

But when she had to choose between art and devotion to the communist cause, she chose the cause. "I cannot solve the problem of life by losing myself in the problem of art" she wrote. First, though, she produced a visual legacy of beauty and strength.

Some have suggested that Modotti was introduced to photography as a young girl in Italy, where her uncle, Pietro Modotti, maintained a photography studio. Later in the U.S., her father briefly ran a similar studio in San Francisco. However, it was through her relationship with Edward Weston that Modotti rapidly developed as an important fine art photographer and documentarian. Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo divided Modotti’s career as a photographer into two distinct categories: "Romantic" and "Revolutionary." The former period includes her time spent as Weston’s darkroom assistant, office manager and, finally, creative partner. Together they opened a portrait studio in Mexico City and were commissioned to travel around Mexico taking photographs for Anita Brenner’s book, "Idols Behind Altars."

In Mexico, Modotti found a community of cultural and political avant guardists. She became the photographer of choice for the blossoming Mexican mural movement, documenting the works of José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera. Her visual vocabulary matured during this period, such as her formal experiments with architectural interiors, flowers and urban landscapes, and especially in her many lyrical images of peasants and workers. Indeed, her one-woman retrospective exhibition at the National Library in December 1929 was advertised as "The First Revolutionary Photographic Exhibition In Mexico." She had reached a high point in her career as a photographer, but within the next year she was forced to set her camera aside in favor of more pressing concerns. [ Wiki ]

October 17, 2009

Arcos Bosques Tower 1 is a prominent skyscraper in Mexico City. It was designed by Teodoro González. It is 36 stories tall, with 33 levels of office space. It is composed of two parallel columns of 31 floors and 4 more floors at the top joined by a lintel. It is colloquially known as El Pantalón ("The Trousers").

October 16, 2009

The Doors of Perception is a 1954 book by Aldous Huxley. The title comes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern."

October 15, 2009

Franciscan convent and Cathedral of Cuernavaca.Cuernavaca is the capital of the state of Morelos. The construction on its cathedral began in 1533 to serve as a shrine to the adjacent Franciscan convent. There is an open chapel with vaults with gothic ribs built between 1536 and 1538 next to the cathedral. It is still possible to see pieces of mural paintings from the sixteenth century in the cloister of the convent. The chapel of the Third Order whose facade was built in baroque style and which has a beautiful altarpiece made of carved wood is located in the atrium.

October 14, 2009

Sign: Misc. La Esperanza [Miscellaneous The Hope] Miscellaneous, old stores or minimarkets not in use anymore, displaced by big chains of stores. The image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the name Hope don't help against 'progress'.

October 5, 2009

Without hope and asking God for help, education for their children, jobs, health care, security, services don’t provided by the Mexican State, but politicians and catholic hierarchy, they take care of themselves:

Mexico’s establishment also keeps quiet about the salaries and benefits that its members receive. Private-sector executives are especially secretive. Thanks to Forbes magazine, however, we know that Mexico leads Latin America with ten billionaires, including telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helú, the world’s third richest person with $30 billion. And an increasing amount of data is available on the earnings of public officials. The numbers show that Mexico’s governing class is enriching itself at the country’s expense, with exorbitant salaries and bountiful perks. Remember, these are “official” figures. Most politicians have ingenious ways of fattening their bank accounts.

The salaries of top Mexican government officials match or exceed those of comparable figures in Europe and much of the rest of the world. President Vicente Fox ($236,693), for example, makes more than the leaders of the U.K. ($211,434), France ($95,658), Canada ($75,582), and most other industrialized countries (POTUS earns $400,000).

The 500 members of Mexico’s notoriously irresponsible Chamber of Deputies, which is in session only a few months a year, each made $148,000 last year in salary and bonuses—roughly on a par with Italian and Canadian legislators and substantially more than their counterparts in Germany ($105,000), France ($78,000), and Spain ($32,311), where living costs are markedly higher. Other legislators in Latin America receive substantially less; for example, those in Bolivia earn $28,000 for a four-month session. Legislators in the Dominican Republic take home $68,500 for six months of service.

Even better work, if you can get it, is to be found in the judicial branch of the Mexican federal government. In 2005, the 11 justices on the National Supreme Court of Justice—equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court—received $311,759, compared to $194,200 for their American counterparts. (The U.S. Chief Justice earns $202,900.)

State-level Mexican officials are amply rewarded as well. Salaries and bonuses place the average compensation of Mexican governors at $125,759, which exceeds by almost $10,000 the mean paychecks of U.S. state executives ($115,778). Narciso Agúndez Montaño runs Baja California Sur. Although his state has only 424,041 residents, he earns $277,777. This is $100,000 more than the salary of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who governs 36,132,147 Californians.

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